The reason why forcing marriage on the poor is a bad idea

1. Marriage is not an arrangement that should be entered without great thought, mutual understanding and love that can withstand disease, money woes and the toothpaste lid being left off.

2. Marriage is not the answer to poverty. There are loads of married people who are poor or who struggle to survive. Having men and women seek out spouses to help them pay the rent debases the idea of marriage. In fact, our society has always denigrated those women who seek out men for money as well as those men who do the same. ...those people are considered "gold diggers".

3. If anything there are a lot of people who get married for bad reasons and that is why the divorce rate is so high. While this year I will celebrate my tenth wedding anniversary it has been a wonderful but tough ten years but we both loved and respected each other...and even then we did have our troubles...

I met a young woman recently who told me that she isn't the least bit ashamed to say that her goal is to find a rich husband and get married. Good Luck to her...but I think it is a shallow and selfish goal and I think she should worry about the here and now and building herself a career in case Mr. Trump is no longer available for her.

4. Pushing marriage could lead to more single mother/father households especially if those who marry have kids and then decide "it's just not right"...

My grandmother and her sister were professionals at marriage...my great aunt had 4 husbands... all of whom she married because there was no social safety net and "netting" a husband was about the only reliable source of income for a twice widowed, twice divorced woman with kids...back in the 30's and 40's... when her last husband died she did not remarry because by that time social security was available, her ovaries had stopped supplying fertile eggs and her kids were grown up enough for her to work and support herself...she became independent.

My grandmother married twice but kept "boarders" in her house...she married her second husband (not my grandfather) for his paycheck and he subsequently molested her daughters, cheated on her and died in a mysterious accident at work most likely caused by his philandering and obscene behavior. Her boarders were actually kinder and nicer to the kids and the lack of marriage gave her more freedom in the relationship.

If anything my mother's generation and mine have learned from those women that independence and not dependence are better things to teach than pushing marriage.

....getting off my soapbox this morning.

I do think that with stable relationships, we should encourage the poor to get married when possible if children are involved. It cements relationships legally, and makes it easier if one parent dies for the other to take over custody without getting the courts involved. I also think that if a child is living with birth parents, it is healthier for the child if his parents have a legal and spiritual commitment to each other. I also think that if gay marriage were legal, a married gay couple would also be a good influence because the lesson being taught to the kids is the same-adults who make commitments to be a family stick with it.

Encouraging marriage means keeping license fees low and easy to file, getting the private sector to help people have low-cost ceremonies, etc. I support this type of thing.

Forcing marriage would be to tell people that they are not eligible for any type of public assistance unless they are married, or giving more money to married parents than single parents.

its the divorce that costs a lot.

For about $50 bucks anyone can get married if you forgo the finery and hoopla. If anything it is the "lure" of the hoopla part that gets a lot of people into trouble and they make poor marital choices.

I agree that we should encourage sound relationships but I think that the fundies and Bush are pushing marriage for the wrong reasons.

A few of the soldiers in our area that have died in Iraq left behind children that they had with women they were not married to...I can't imagine the legal hurdles to get any compensation or even social security benefits for those kids....what we should do is explain how much harder things are if they are not "legally" defined.

5. Marriage is a crapshoot, at best, no matter how much thought or planning has gone into it. You simply don't know what is going to happen years down the road regarding things like alcoholism, disease from infidelity, or abuse.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I am not sure what triggered this.

Marriage is difficult; no one disputes that. But I do think that marriage - by and large - can instill responsibility and a sense of community in people. These concepts are needed at all levels of society, but especially in poor neighborhoods.

no one has the right to make the poor live up to a higher standard of morality than the rest of us, even when the consequences fall more heavily upon them.

because the middle class and rich can buy their way out of difficulties they should not have preferential treatment.

This counseling is going to be telling women they need to live with abuse ... just more "code words".

What counseling?

Was something proposed and I missed it?

no one has the right to make the poor live up to a higher standard of morality than the rest of us, even when the consequences fall more heavily upon them.

because the middle class and rich can buy their way out of difficulties they should not have preferential treatment.

This counseling is going to be telling women they need to live with abuse ... just more "code words". Notice there is no talk about counseling regarding domestic violence is all this talk.

Money. It's been documented again and again and again.


If they really wanted to encourage people to build strong marriages, they'd make sure people could find good jobs that paid a fair, living wage. The stress of money trouble destroys relationships. That's not to suggest that the rich don't have problems with relationships too, but a lack of economic security is simply one more obstacle that people have to overcome.

They don't really care about the marriages of the poor. Dubya just found another way to enrich his evangelical supporters via the US Treasury. They'll be the ones in charge of these programs.

and if anything it would be better to spend this money on education....better preparing students for the real world and giving them the skills to adapt.

Two independent individuals with good life skills as well as good jobs are more likely to find joy in marriage or even cohabitation.

Particularly if the woman is poor and uneducated herself. The days when a man could go the mill or factory and find a good-paying job without education or training are long gone. Jobs of any sort that support a family are vanishing.

The Republicans are pushing marriage these days as a way to solve the single mother/welfare/day care dilemma: get 'em married, and they can stay home with the kids. If they believe that then they are living in the fifties.

How much thought goes into any marriage? Very little, or none. Younger people confuse sex with love. I say if you're horny...masturbate. It's cheaper than getting married and less stressful than living with someone you really don't love. And then if the "sex" produces a few children...

My parents divorced when I was 14. My mother raised my three younger siblings by herself and did just fine. They had to live in a government housing project....food stamps...and such. This whole concept that children need a father and mother is bullshit. Our welfare system saved my mother and siblings. And I can tell any lurking repuke-freepers that my two brothers and sister are far more successful (and happier) today than you are. They didn't need some fucked biblical doctrine to make their life "better"...

We (wife and myself) will celebrate our 24th anniversary this year. We were dirt poor when we got married. Because we were broke, we made the decision not to have children and just never got around to doing "that thing". A decision we are both very comfortable with to this day...

"Forcing" anyone to get married is a recipe for disaster. Rich or Poor. I wouldn't even advocate "encouraging" marriage as the other post suggests. Right or wrong, it should only be a decision that a couple makes.

I'm sorry....I'm rambling....what was this thread about?